Luc Ferrari is one of the most important names in experimental music and electronic music. Working along Pierre Schafer, he developed early Musique Concrete. He taught in important institutions of the medium like the Rheinische Musikschule, working with Stockhausen. But what makes Luc Ferrari notorious is his works on electroacoustic music, combining both his classical music knowledge with sophisticated sound design, using tape an other electronic tools. In his whole career, Ferrari met and collaborated with figures such as John Cage and Michel Chion, winning multiple music and academic awards.

I’ve listened to Luc Ferrari’s Presque rien NO.1 and I felt totally compelled by its narrative. Using field recordings from one of his visits to the Dalmatian islands and then combining them with diverse percussions and dialogue. The piece is calm inducing, when hearing it I got lost in its world. I think this is achieved by its vast amount of details. Every time I heard the piece, I noticed something different. Back in the days I got a huge interest in western classical music, but I left the interest due to my growing interest to electronic sound sources. Ferrari combines them both and doesn’t fail to create a pleasurable aesthetic. He inspired me to try again with traditional music technique, but always combining them with new and exciting electronic practices.

Masami Akita better known as Merzbow, is a Japanese musician and artist, focused specifically in noise music. It could be argued that Merzbow is one of the leading pioneers of the Japanoise scene, working with noise as his main building blocks of compositions. I recently read an interview conducted by Jason Gross to Merzbow in 1997 where they discuss Merzbow ideology and concepts behind his music. Merzbow explains that his approach on doing music comes from his necessity to escape the traditional ways of composition and aesthetic, specially to abandon the delicate music scene that has developed in Japan in the recent years. His music has also been connected with sexual practices such as bondage (he actually did the sound track for a bondage group), similar to his approach with music he seeks to explore the limits of sexuality, to break with the traditional sex culture of Japan. By using effect pedals and mixers as instruments, he creates thick violent layer of noise, that give character to his style. Merzbow music is also widely inspired from industrial music, his album “Ecobondage” was creating using self made metal percussion.

“Ecobondage” is an example of Herzbow interest in bondage and hard sex cultures, the title of the album comes from a book by Michel Foucault, a philosopher that explored sexuality.

Merzbow was a big inspiration for me when composing my assessment piece. I used industrial sounds and heavy distortion to convey the genre of noise music. I will now further explore the Japanoise scene and at the same time indulge in other noise cultures around the world.

Ambisonic is a sonic format that instead of being multi-channel, like stereo or 5.1, is 360 surrounding. In ambisonics, the hearing experience can be described as 3D, placing sounds not just in front of you, but all around your body. Ambisonics are being used mainly to mirror other similar formats, like VR. To records sound in an ambisonic format you need a special type of microphone that contain multiple diaphragms, pointing to all directions. Some binaural microphones can also record 360 sounds. This type of microphones are defined by two prosthetic ears that are use to mimic the way humans listen, the purpose of these microphones is to record sound such as how humans hear them. (Picture below displays Neumann KU 100, binaural dummy head)

The format of ambisonics is going to change the way we record and play back sounds. Everyday the technology becomes more accessible and sound practitioners are using them in creative processes. An idea that occurred to me of a creative use of ambisonics, is DJ mixing but with 360 surrounding sound. The listener will experience the mixing changes in different hearing locations, giving the opportunity for the listener to interact with the music in a greater depth.